The position and orientation of parts during fabrication and assembly require demanding tolerances. Information about the part, such as information about the surface of the part, during production, testing and evaluation must be very accurate in order to meet the increasing demand for high performance products, such as in the aerospace industry. The required tolerances may challenge the capability of available measurement components and systems.
Current coherent laser metrology systems utilize light waves (e.g., laser beams) to perform a variety of positioning and measuring functions. Laser metrology can perform measurements at high resolution and provide accurate geometric dimensional data about the part. Unfortunately, high production rates may be difficult to meet with existing laser metrology systems because the systems measure only one point on the surface of the part at a time. Thus, these systems require significant time to achieve high accuracy.
Since existing solutions are not designed to support high production rates due to being limited by single point measurements, production rates are limited. One solution to this limitation is to build additional work cells. However, achieving higher production flow rates in this manner comes at great expense.
Accordingly, those skilled in the art continue with research and development efforts in the field of laser metrology.